14 Things You Need To Know About Drinking Hand Sanitizer
So, kids are drinking hand sanitizer to get drunk. Here’s everything you need to know about this hot new trend.
1. A bottle of hand sanitizer contains the equivalent of five hard liquor shots.
2. Teenagers mix it with Listerine.
Albuquerque Police Department Deputy Chief Paul Feist says when mixed with 26% Listerine, hand sanitizer makes a “strong cocktail.”
3. Other teens use salt to separate the alcohol from the sanitizer, making a potent drink similar to a shot of hard liquor.
Distillation instructions can be found on the Internet.
4. You’ll get drunk REALLY fast.
“All it takes is just a few swallows and you have a drunk teenager,” said Cyrus Rangan, director of the toxicology bureau for the county public health department and a medical toxicology consultant for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
5. Drinking hand sanitizer was originally a trend in prisons in New Zealand.
6. Getting drunk off of hand sanizter is most popular in Alaska, Missouri, and California.
The LA Times says six teenagers have shown up in two San Fernando Valley emergency rooms in the last few months with alcohol poisoning after drinking hand sanitizer.
KOB Albuquerque reports that Alaska and Missouri also have reports of the growing trend.
7. Drinking hand sanitizer can cause diarrhea, blindness, memory loss and damage to your internal organs.
According to Albuquerque Police Department Deputy Chief Paul Feist, “It’s not reversible.”
8. A man in Australia once drank 6 bottles of hand sanitizer and survived.
10. You might kill someone if you drink it.
In Albuquerque, police officers found empty bottles of hand sanitizer and mouthwash next to a dead body.
12. The Albuquerque Police Department is currently asking stores not to sell mouthwash and hand sanitizer to someone who appears to be drunk.
13. If parents buy hand sanitizer, they should purchase the foam version rather than the gel type because it is harder to extract the alcohol and teenagers may be less likely to drink it.
14. Experts are also saying parents shouldn’t leave hand sanitizer around the house.
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